


strange toys and other mysteries

by sinequanon



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, M/M, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-26
Updated: 2021-02-10
Packaged: 2021-03-09 17:41:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,560
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27720175
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sinequanon/pseuds/sinequanon
Summary: When Peter gets called home for a last minute birthday party for his niece, Cora, his options for purchasing a gift are limited. His choice to go into one odd little store will change his family's  lives forever.
Relationships: Peter Hale & Stiles Stilinski, Peter Hale/Stiles Stilinski
Comments: 70
Kudos: 640





	1. fifteen years ago

**Author's Note:**

> I don't usually post unfinished things, but the second chapter is already done and the only reason the third isn't is because I was dissatisfied with the way it was going. I am hopeful the other two chapters will be posted in December.

_Fifteen years ago_

Misfit Toys wouldn’t normally have been Peter’s first choice when shopping for his niece’s birthday, but since Talia gave him less than a day’s notice about the party, she had no room to complain about his choice of gift. Especially since Peter was going to need to be on the road by 5:00 tomorrow morning in order to make it to Beacon Hills in time for lunch.

Peter loved his family, but he still had things to do this evening, so the strange little shop nestled between a pharmacy and a pizza parlor would have to do. A bell jingled pleasantly when Peter pushed open the door, but that was where the similarity to a traditional store ended. At first glance, Misfit Toys looked more like someone’s lackluster yard sale than an actual place of business. The shop consisted of a single room—two, if the curtain behind the counter led to storage like Peter suspected. One wall was taken up entirely by a giant fish tank, filled with exotic, brightly colored fish, while the other contained three large wooden chests: one in oak; one in cedar; and one in walnut. A dark-haired, honey-eyed boy, around Cora’s age, stared at him from the counter. A quick check with his senses showed that there was no one else in the building. Peter frowned.

“Pick a box,” the kid said.

“What?” He was torn between doing as he was asked, getting out of the shop as quickly as possible, and inquiring about the kid’s parents. Surely, he wasn’t here by himself? 

The kid gestured wildly toward the chests against the wall and almost fell of his stool. “Pick a box. Whatever you’re looking for will be inside.”

With a roll of his eyes (and the not-entirely-kind thought that he wasn’t looking for _anything_ in particular) Peter strode toward the first chest and pulled it open. Almost immediately, he was hit with the scents of home: the smell of the forest; his father’s cologne; his sister’s Thanksgiving dinner. The werewolf literally staggered back a half-step before he went to his knees in front of the chest.

“You have chosen...wisely,” the kid mumbled, and Peter almost grinned at the quip until he caught sight of what exactly was in the chest before him. There were toys, of course, but many of them were faded and worn, like they had just brought in someone’s personal toy box and put all of its items up for sale.

“Are these _used_ toys?” Peter growled, and his eyes may or may not have flashed in annoyance. In normal circumstances, he would have been mortified at the thought that he had so little control over his reactions, but this was Cora’s birthday, and he was not about to give her someone else’s castoff.

“No,” the kid’s eyebrows raised, and he drew out the word in a way that said clearly that he thought the werewolf was stupid, “they’re misfit toys. They haven’t found the right homes yet, but they’ll be great for the people who need them.”

Peter narrowed his eyes at him, but the kid was unmoved. “Just pick something,” he said. “You literally can’t make a bad choice.”

Peter thought he most definitely _could_ make a bad choice in this situation, notwithstanding how Cora would pester him if he got her something that she didn’t find at least nominally interesting. She was like him that way. “What if I want to think about it and come back tomorrow?” the werewolf asked, mostly to see how the kid would respond.

“We won’t be here tomorrow.”

“Next week, then.”

“We’re moving.”

Well, that certainly explained the sparse decor, but—“What about the fish?” Peter wondered.

“They’re guard fish,” the kid said, almost defensively. “Look, pick your three things so we can both go home, would you? My dad’s going to notice that I’m gone soon, and I’m not getting into trouble for you.”

Peter ignored the last part of the sentence to focus on the first. “Three things?”

“Look, Dude, I don’t make the rules. I just know you’re leaving with four things.”

“You said three a second ago.”

The kid shrugged. “Time is fluid; just go with it.”

(At this point, most people would have walked out and found a less frustrating toy store, but Peter Hale was not most people. Nothing about this situation made sense, and Peter had always been inordinately fascinated by things that didn’t quite make sense.)

As the kid looked on, Peter knelt back down to the oak chest and began carefully making his way through its contents. No one thing stood out to him, though, let alone four.

“We’re closing soon,” the kid said, and Peter felt his ire rise once more. “What am I supposed to do?” he all but growled. “Dig through here until something literally jumps into my arms?”

The kid scoffed and hopped down from his stool. “That’s stupid,” he exclaimed, and nudged Peter out of the way of the chest. He shut the lid, gently but firmly, waited a few seconds, and then called out, “Olly, olly oxen free,” and reopened the lid.

There were three things at the bottom of the chest: a violet music box, with a spinning ballerina inside; one of those plain, black and white electronic pets that were popular before websites and apps were everywhere; and a magic 8 ball.

Peter was so shocked by the offerings that the kid managed to take the items from his hands and bag them up before the werewolf had completely recovered. He wasn’t sure what surprised him more—the magic trick, or the toys themselves.

“That’ll be ten dollars,” he said, and then scurried to the back for a moment while Peter automatically dug out his wallet. When Peter handed him the requested bill, the kid pressed an old pocket watch into his hand, along with the bag. “That’s yours,” he said. “Try not to lose it.”

Later that night, after Peter had wrapped his gifts (the music box for Laura, the pet for Derek, the magic 8 ball and $20 for Cora), he would pull out the watch the kid had given him and discover that it wasn’t a watch at all, but a compass, etched brass with a black spinner and a tiny wolf painted on the inside cover. 

It was a beautiful compass, except for one problem: no matter how much Peter experimented with it, it never, ever changed position.


	2. fourteen years ago

_Fourteen years ago_

Cora trudged up the stairs to her room and slammed the door shut behind her. With any luck, any cousins or siblings that might otherwise charge in to annoy her would think twice and she wouldn’t have to bother with ripping their heads off. She fell onto her bed with a sigh, but yelped when whatever was buried in her pillows poked her in the back. She glanced toward the empty spot on her bookshelf and knew what it was before she pulled it out. Her dumb magic 8 ball. No doubt, her cousins had been playing with it again and had forgotten to put it away. Honestly, if she didn’t love those pests so much, she would have gotten rid of it by now. She knew that she couldn’t be the only one tired of hearing, “you may rely on it”, or “reply hazy, try again”, or “outlook not so good” every time one of them was asked a question.

She would never admit it to anyone, but Cora had thought Uncle Peter’s gift was kind of cool—for about two days. Unfortunately, there were only so many yes or no questions a person could ask before it got old. Something else that got old? Her cousins, coming into her room without permission.

Cora glared at nothing in particular, and swallowed a deep sigh. It was supposed to be her birthday weekend, not a Derek heartbreak-palooza. So he fell in love with the wrong girl. Who cared? It wasn’t like anybody died. And yes, it was bad that she was probably a hunter, but Derek had his stupid little fake pet to take care of, so he’d be okay.

(Seriously, she knew her brother was a nerd, but he spent way too much time and effort on keeping that thing “alive”. Sometimes, she thought he loved it more than the rest of the family, but since she also had things she generally liked more than her family, she let that sentiment slide.)

She considered tossing the 8 ball under her bed to deal with later, but it wasn’t like her weekend could get any worse. “Okay,” she grumbled, shaking the ball far more vigorously than necessary, “if you’re supposed to tell me the future, answer me this: what are we having for dinner tonight?”

Cora figured that if it could really predict the future like her cousins so ardently claimed, the ball would say something like “better not tell you now”, or “ask again later” because its yes/no format didn’t have room for pot roast. She waited until the little die had settled before she glanced at the answer.

WHY DON’T YOU GO DOWNSTAIRS AND FIND OUT? it read.

Cora dropped that magic 8 ball like it was a hot coal and watched as it spun awkwardly across the room to rest against the closed door. For a few long, excruciating seconds, she was torn by indecision. One part of her wanted to pick the ball up and ask it another question, and the other wanted to throw open the door, run down the stairs, and make her mother come and pick it up and take it outside. Cora had never been one to hide from the things that scared her, though, so she scooped it up and asked it another question before she lost her nerve. “Let’s do an easy one. What’s my middle name?”

WHY, HAVE YOU FORGOTTEN IT?

“Do you do this for my cousins, too?”

I’M NOT A PERFORMING MONKEY, YOU KNOW.

 _Holy crap._ “So can you actually tell the future?” She shook the ball, but it didn’t answer. She tried again, but the shape inside the ball refused to settle. Maybe it was tired? Maybe there was a limit to the number of questions it could answer in a day? She’d have to try to find out.

Later, while she was eating her pot roast dinner, Cora glanced over at her brother crouched over his digital pet and had to wonder: was there something special about it, too? Was that why Derek spent so much time taking care of it, because it was more real than it was supposed to be? Was it what had kept Derek from spiraling completely out of control after the whole Kate thing? She wanted to ask him, but the adults in the family were practically sleeping on top of him right now, so there would be no way to get her older brother alone any time soon. Maybe she could figure out a way to ask Laura whether her music box had any strange quirks, and, if that didn’t work, maybe her magic 8 ball would be willing to tell her whether it was the only weird thing in the house? 

There were too many questions, and not enough answers. She ate her cherry pie, and plotted.

<> <>

Laura was a bust. As it turned out, her sister liked her gift, except that the volume on it seemed to be busted, and she said that she’d lost more jewelry since she started using it than she ever had when it was just scattered across her dresser. Laura figured that the cousins were borrowing it and forgetting to return it, but everyone in the family knew that Laura was not the best at keeping track of her things, so it was less likely that Laura's box ate jewelry and more likely that it was, well, _anywhere else._ The magic 8 ball refused to say anything about Laura’s and Derek’s presents at all except, NOT MY BUSINESS, which was extremely unhelpful. Still, Cora liked her magic 8 ball a lot, and she was a little sad that she’d ignored it for a year. It was funny, and sarcastic, and helpful when it wanted to be, and Cora got into the habit over the next few weeks of talking to it before she went to school and asking it about any important gossip she’d missed when she got home. 

A month after her twelfth birthday, Cora’s parents finally got around to giving her the party that they had put off due to Derek’s issues. It was strictly a family thing, but it was a _big_ family thing, and Cora couldn’t help but be excited. Even Derek’s worried frown couldn’t phase her. She was so caught up in the crush of family that she completely forgot to check in with 8 until it was almost supper time. Dodging extra cousins and her great grandmother took some work, but she finally had a chance to escape while everyone was piling the food into the table. After checking to make sure her door was firmly closed, she offered her friend a breathless hello and a general, “how are things?” and waited for the response.

GET OUT OF THE HOUSE.

“ _What?_ ” Cora asked, alarmed, even as her feet were already moving. She pushed her door open with such force it slammed against the wall, and somehow, she wasn’t even a little surprised to see her brother, clutching his electronic pet as he met her at the top of the stairs.

YOU ARE IN DANGER, the ball said when she glanced down again.

“We need to go,” Derek breathed, and Cora nodded. “I know.” And then she screamed at everyone to get out of the house, right now.

The next few minutes felt like hours as the family raced to both evacuate the house and make sure everyone was accounted for. Thankfully, no one questioned both Cora and Derek’s insistence that they leave immediately, and that is what saved their lives.

That, and the fact that Derek’s virtual pet literally rose up out of the screen like they were in some sort of sketchy sci-fi movie, broke the mountain ash barrier, and swallowed Gerard Argent whole.

Despite the almost-fire, it was one of Cora’s top five birthdays ever.


	3. present day

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I apologize for the long wait. I had some technical issues and some life stuff, and there were multiple times when I got about eighty percent through this chapter before deciding that I didn't like it and starting over. Seriously. The Sheriff, Parrish, Laura Hale, and Erica were all characters who showed up in various versions of chapter three that didn't make the cut. I'm not entirely satisfied with this one, either, but I don't want to keep you waiting any longer.

_Present day_

“Peter, hurry up!” Talia called up the stairs. “We’re going to be late. Again!” Just like last year, Talia was sure, they’d be the last people to arrive, and just like last year, she’d have to put up with Mayor Mahealani’s wide, knowing grins for weeks. (And, honestly, just because she and her husband got distracted one time, did not mean that was the reason every time they were late thereafter. If Talia didn’t like the mayor so much, she’d find the looks insufferable.)

Unfortunately, Peter wasn’t paying attention to his sister, or the noise of a full house, or anything other than the object in his hands. He was sitting on the bed, in his room, and staring at a compass with its face had cracked down the middle. He felt unaccountably nervous, and he wasn't sure why.

After the run-in with Gerard, the family had sat down to try to make sense of everything that had happened, and that was when Derek and Cora had shared their stories about the toys that Peter had bought them and their unlikely roles in saving the family. Peter had described his experience at Misfit Toys and how he came to choose the presents that he had. They still weren’t sure what Laura’s box could do, but they were all sure that it must do something special. After all, even Cora and Derek’s toys seemed perfectly ordinary to everyone other than them. 

It had preyed on Peter’s mind for years, his experience at the shop and the cool metal of the compass as the boy pressed it into his hand. He hadn’t noticed it at the time, but there had been a weight to that moment, as if Peter’s fingers curling around the gift had made any number of puzzle pieces fall into place. It felt like that now, too, as if the right choice could fill in the puzzle completely, and the wrong one could scatter the pieces away.

 _You literally can’t make a bad choice,_ the kid’s voice said in his head, but Peter somehow doubted that was true. If Derek had brushed aside his toy as childish, if Cora had given the magic 8 ball to her cousins, their story could have turned out very differently. The Hale pack owed their lives—however inadvertently—to that young man.

 _Try not to lose it_ , the kid had also said, and while Peter hadn't done that, he _had_ been distracted enough for it to get commandeered into a game of pirates, and, as was the pirating way, nearly destroyed. After being dropped down the stairs, nearly cooked with lunch, and tossed against the wall for good measure, Peter was lucky the glass only had one large crack, instead of being shattered beyond repair.

"I don't know what you're doing up there, Peter, but we're leaving without you if you're not downstairs in the next two minutes!" 

Ignoring his sister's threat was easy, but his mind stayed on the compass even as he was forced into the backseat of the SUV. Still, he promised himself to make at least three people at the gala cry to make up for it. Better yet, with any luck, the owner of the new jewelry store in town would be in attendance, and he would be able to check up on her before entrusting her with his gift.

<> <>

Fortunately for Peter, Lydia Martin of Martin's Fine Jewelry _was_ in attendance at the gala. Lydia was a torch in a room full of half-burned candles, and Peter liked her immediately. She promised to take a look at his compass the next afternoon, and Peter was in such a good mood afterword that he managed to terrorize two extra people before the night was through.

The following day, Peter arrived at Martin's Fine Jewelry at precisely his appointed time, compass in hand. Lydia greeted him with a small smile and a nod toward the compass, and he didn't hesitate to hand it over.

Lydia turned the object in question over a few times before beginning to examine it more closely. "Have you had this for long?" she asked, not bothering to look up from her task.

"About fifteen years," he offered. "Can you fix it?"

"Hm, no," she said shortly, handing the item back to him. "This is a bit of a specialty item; you'll need to ask the person to sold it to you to for help."

" _What_?"

"Let me guess. Fifteen years ago, you walked into a small shop that you otherwise would have never entered. You met a very nice but strangely pushy woman who gave you something you didn't want but that ended up changing the course of your life anyway."

Peter gaped at her. That story was almost true, except—"It wasn't a woman. It was a boy, maybe ten or eleven."

"Of course it was," Lydia huffed softly.

"I went in to get a present for my niece, and he gave me this as I left."

Lydia's eyes flashed with something that Peter couldn't name, and her smile got sharper. "Stiles let you walk put with more than one thing?"

Peter nodded, and wisely refrained from telling Lydia exactly how many items this Stiles had given him. For her part, Lydia stared at him for a long, uncomfortable moment before the chiming of the door caught their attention, followed by two young men entering the shop.

The first was the classically handsome, chiseled-jaw type. His eyes zeroed in on Lydia as soon as they entered and she greeted him with a slightly bigger smile than the one she'd given him. The second had a more casual look than the first, and his hair was longer than it had been the last time Peter saw him, but he recognized the young man immediately.

There were any number of things that Peter could have said in that moment, but what popped out of his mouth was, "You must be Stiles."

The other two snickered at him, but Peter only had eyes for Stiles.

<> <>

Months later, after Peter and Stiles had gotten to know each other and the werewolf had finally managed to take Stiles home, and Stiles had spent the evening brushing aside any number of "thank yous" and eaten an impressive amount of food, Peter finally decided to ask him about the broken compass.

" _Well, did you ever tell it what you wanted to find?"_ Stiles had asked him. " _It's sort of like a puppy that way. Unless you give it direction, it'll just sit there and slobber on your shoes. Metaphorically speaking, of course. And anyway, you eventually decided that you wanted to find_ me _, right? Bit you didn't do anything compass-y. So, I think that it just decided to take matters into its own hands. You know, also metaphorically speaking._ "

And if Peter gifted the cousins a tiny mountain of pirate-themed paraphernalia later that Christmas, well, no one could blame him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A few things: Stiles's mom was a little bit magic. She started Misfit Toys as a way to hone her gifts and make people happy. The chests are made from her magic, and children who visited her shop knew that if they managed to find one of the chests and ask it politely, it would give them the best present they'd ever gotten. The store closed when Claudia died, but Stiles (whose gifts lie in hunches and flashes of inspiration) knew that he needed to sneak out and open the store for about an hour on the night that Peter visited.
> 
> As far as ages go, Stiles was 11 during that first meeting, and Peter was somewhere between 19-21. So when they reunite, Stiles is in his mid-twenties and Peter in his mid-to-upper thirties.
> 
> On Laura's present: I left this plot hole open deliberately, because I couldn't decide what to do with her. Cora and Derek were more than enough to prevent the fire, and adding her into the third chapter seemed unnecessarily pointless...so I eventually gave up. Feel free to imagine whatever you want, there.
> 
> As always, thanks for reading!


End file.
